CAD/CAM - international magazine of digital dentistry

Fig. 3 Fig. 2 I 29 special _ public speaking I CAD/CAM 3_2011 far-away look in their eyes. I came away from that evening of watching AmericanIdol with sharper clar- ityregardingourcareers.Itistimeforustochangeour tune and learn what entertainers build on from day one—it pays to be interesting. If we are smart enough tobedentists,wearesmartenoughtobeinteresting. _Get interesting Listenerinteresttypicallyisatitspeakatthebegin- ning and the end of your talk, with a slump in listener attention in between. This chart shows a typical lis- tener pattern (Fig. 1). Let us say you are presenting a 45-minute talk to a study club. Count on listener attentionslumpingafewminutesintoyourtalk. Here is why a listener’s attention slumps: _They have a lot on their minds. _They think much faster than we talk. _The time of day invites slumping. _They make poor food choices. _They are in the habit of multi-tasking. The key to becoming an effective leader/speaker is the ability to create peaks of interest, breaking listeners out of their slumps. Your timing creates peaks of interest with relevant content, in other words, get interesting right before you get relevant. I call it “peak, then point”—peak their interest, then make your point (Fig. 2). You decide what is relevant based on your ex- perience. This requires much clarity on your part. Toomanyspeakersthinkthateverythingisimportant. Itisnot.Therearemanywaystocreatepeaksofinter- est: humour, storytelling, vocal variety, movement, metaphorsandvisualaids.Thecruxofthis?Becoming interesting makes you more influential because what you are saying sinks in. Why? Because your listeners arepayingattentiontoyouwhileyouaresayingit. Being interesting is the first prerequisite to being influential. Too many dental speakers think their expertcontentisenoughtoholdlisteners’attention. You and I know it is not true. How many times have we drifted off listening to a dental expert’s lecture? Just because you are an expert does not make you interesting! Some experts bristle when I recommend they lighten up a bit and suggest they use some humour,tellafewstoriesandhavesomefun.Iremind them:nooneeverlostcredibilitybybeinginteresting. _Creating peaks of interest Creatingpeaksofinterestistheheartofbeingin- fluential.Somespeakershaveitintheirpersonalities; they are naturally interesting to listen to. For most ofusthatisnottrue.Ourprofessionselectsitsmem- bers on our cognitive abilities, not our personalities. Consequently, I know many highly knowledgeable but uninteresting dentists. Most dentists are really good at following a pro- cess. Give us a cookbook and we can make things happen. Here is the cookbook for creating peaks of interest—it is called the Leader’s Pyramid (Fig. 3). Think of this process as if it is a pyramid with four distinctlayers.Eachlayerrepresentsaspecificaspect ofthelistener’sexperience.Youbuildlistenerinterest inthedirectionofthearrow,startingwithconnection and ending with content. The first layer of the Leader’s Pyramid is connec- tion. Connection is when the listener feels he or she is having a personal experience with you. Another word for connection is relationship. The next layer is movement. Movement gives the listener a sense of your confidence. The third layer is dynamics. Dynamics is the sound of your voice that enables your listeners to feel your energy/emotion. The top layer is content. Content is the intellectual value of your talk that creates logical appeal.